Power, Construction and Meaning in Festivals

Allan Jepson, Alan Clarke

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351664585
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Whether through education, sport or festivity, events form the basis on which we attribute cultural meaning, significance and value to our lives. In this light, community events have the potential to create positive and negative social, cultural, economic and environmental impacts within the community across a wide variety of genres and platforms.

This book offers a deeper and more critical insight into the relationships, dynamics and planning processes of festivals and events and the impact this has upon authenticity, cultural consumption and the local communities they serve. It does so by looking at a range of key debates in power theory, event planning and design, event construction, experience and meaning, authenticity, sustainability, social inclusion, accessibility and sponsorship engagement. International case studies are embedded within the chapters, examining the role of stakeholders, local communities, organisers, local governments and infrastructure.

This critical event studies text is interdisciplinary and will make valuable reading for students and researchers who are interested in the relationships and dynamics involved in the construction and planning of festivals and events, their immediate impact and their significance for the future.

1
Introducing power, meaning and authenticity

Allan Jepson and Alan Clarke

Our book contains contributions from 20 researchers, all of which are intrigued by the prospect of what events can achieve positively for their stakeholders’, and the ways in which power, meaning and authenticity are central concepts to achieving potential positive outcomes in the creation of events.

We begin in Chapter 2 with “A Q-study of Organisers’ Perspectives on Factors of Festival Success in Crete” by Dimitrios P. Stergiou and Eirini Pehlivanidou, from the Hellenic Open University, Greece and David Airey, from the University of Surrey, United Kingdom. They observe that regional events play an important role in the Cretan tourism product with many communities hosting regional festivals. Exploring these from a managerial perspective, the authors note that these festivals provide a range of entertainment and activities and identify many factors that determine their success. The study used Q-methodology to uncover festival success factors based on the subjective perceptions of festival organisers in Crete and identify clusters of participants sharing common viewpoints. The Q-analysis identified two factors representing different perspectives of festival organizer opinion about success factors in the Cretan festival market: A Communitarian/Person-oriented focus and a Pragmatic/Traditional Management focus.

In Chapter 3 Zoe White and Raphaela Stadler from the University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom raise some interesting challenges to what is seen as one of the most successful events. The chapter is entitled “I Don’t Think They Give a Monkey’s about Me”: Exploring Stakeholder Power and Community Alienation at Glastonbury Festival”, and they argue that it is becoming more and more recognised that the needs of the host community need to be met and satisfied in order to ascertain their support for future music festivals. Empowering the host community, including them in the decision-making process, or co-creating the event experience with them have all been found to be essential elements of the planning process and in ensuring the long-term success of a festival.

Moving on, Chapter 4 takes us to Australia, as Karine Dupre, from Griffith University, Australia, presents a study entitled “Event Evolution and the Planning Process: The Case of the Finnish Housing Fair”. She observes the Finnish housing fair is an event that promotes the quality of housing and living conditions in Finland by displaying building products and buildings in a different city across the country each year. For five years, it has attracted more than 110,000 visitors. The study details how this community event is planned, constructed and valued. The focus on processes shows that early strategy, flexibility and adaptation are the key elements to ensure long-term sustainability. Overall, this case study provides a greater understanding into the relationships, dynamics and planning processes of festivals and events and the impact this has with the local communities they serve.

In Chapter 5, Susanna Heldt Cassel from Dalarna University, Sweden offers a powerful analysis of performances of nation, gender and rurality in the sporting and heritage festival of Landsmót in Iceland. She argues that events and festivals celebrating national identity or the uniqueness of the cultural and traditions of a specific region or place may be interpreted as arenas where identities of both people and places are staged and performed. Sports and cultural events may enhance and play with identities, such as the co-construction of gender identities and national identities, as a part of the event or festival itself. These co-constructions and expressions of identity discourses as part of events and festivals are not least reinforced with the impact of social media and the posting of images by many other actors than the organisers and managers of the event.

David Jarman, from Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom, offers an intriguing analysis entitled “Personal Networks in Festival, Event and Creative Communities: Perceptions, Connections and Collaborations” in Chapter 6. This chapter introduces the application of ego network analysis methods to the study of perceived personal networks in the festival, event and creative industries. From an opening critique of traditional stakeholder analyses, which it is argued lack the detail necessary to adequately reflect the experiences of individuals in these industries, two case studies are used to introduce and apply this form of social network analysis. Examination and comparison of the cases reveals compositional and structural elements of the two networks, providing evidence of the individuals’ social capital and brokerage potential. The potential for network analysis to reveal a person’s power within their community is considered.

“Innovation in Rural Festivals”, Chapter 7, offers a discussion of innovation and empowerment, or rather disempowerment by Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, from Koszalin University of Technology, Poland and Anne-Mette Hjalager, from the University of Southern Denmark. Based on an empirical survey among 315 Danish rural festivals, this chapter addresses the opportunities for the management of festivals to provide continuous innovations. Taking into account that festival management is largely a bottom-up process occurring in a multi-actor environment, the authors conclude that local and external collaboration tend to limit an innovative capacity, and festivals’ management needs to proceed gently with more radical categories of changes. The chapter distinguishes between self-empowerment, community empowerment and bridging empowerment aiming finally to establish a collective innovative orientation.

Chapter 8 by W. Gerard Ryan, from the University of Salford, United Kingdom, and Stephen Kelly, from Staffordshire University, United Kingdom, take the focus in “The Effects of Supply Chain Management (SCM) Activities and Their Impact Upon Festival Management and the Customer Experience”. They observe that as the number of festivals and the need to provide more satisfying customer experiences continue to grow, the challenges faced by festival managers have become more complicated than ever. For them, this means that festival organisers are becoming progressively more reliant on their inter-organisational/delivery partners to sustain and improve their ongoing operational activity. Supply Chain Management (SCM) provides a new dimension to a traditional perspective on the management of festivals, as collective co-operation can lead to the provision of superior value to customers. Through data collected from multiple semi-structured interviews with directors and employees at UK-based music events and festival suppliers, this chapter offers insights into how the effective and efficient management of SCM carries additional benefits to festival delivery.

For Chapter 9, our attention is drawn to Canada by Mohamed Reda Khomsi from the University of Quebec, Canada. Montreal was the first Canadian city to host major international events such as the World Fair of 1967 and the Olympic Games of 1976. The impact of these two events remained very limited or even negative if we consider skepticism observed among citizens regarding the hosting of major events. Unlike these two events, the celebrations of the 350th anniversary of the city celebrated in 1992 will be shown to have important spin-offs for the city. This chapter aims to explain how an event with lower value, cost and international influence can generate greater benefits for the host community than hallmark events and is called “The Importance of the Stakeholder Relationship for the Success of an Event; The Case of Montreal”.

In Chapter 10, Trudie Walters, from the University of Otago, New Zealand addresses themes central to this collection in a contribution entitled “‘Power Wrestling’: The Life and (Untimely) Death of the Real Food Festival” (which is a title the editors would have loved to have come up with first!) The author notes that the life cycles of local community events and festivals and the attendant role of power in these life cycles is not well understood, particularly when a festival ceases to exist. This chapter examines the evolution of a local community food festival in Southeast Queensland, Australia, and investigates the changing nature of power relations during its existence. ‘Power to’ (as an enabling force) was explicitly implicated in the conceptualising and creation of the festival, whilst ‘power over’ (as a constraining force) shaped its life course and contributed to its (untimely) death.

Ruth Dowson and Ian Lamond from Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom, turn their attention to religion and politics in “Event, Authenticity and Meaning: A Dialogical Approach”, Chapter 11. This chapter transgresses the old adage, ‘never discuss religion or politics’. Taking a dialogical approach, the similarities and differences in how we can understand the articulation of events within church and social movement communities are discussed. Adopting the format of a conversation, the authors’ examine their differing conceptual positions and practical experiences, establishing points of similarity and difference. They argue that contemporary social movement and religious discourses and practices frequently find expression through formal and informal events, and they conclude that maybe the two are not as far apart as we may have first thought.

Joanna Fountain and Michael Mackay, from Lincoln University, New Zealand offer “Commemoration, Celebration, and Commercialisation: Akaroa’s French Festival” as Chapter 12. They explore how the township of Akaroa has held a community festival celebrating the French heritage of the town for more than two decades. In 2015, the festival was larger than ever before, marking 175 years since the first French settlers arrived. Based primarily on in-depth interviews, this chapter explores the meanings this festival holds for a range of festival stakeholders. The analysis reveals that different stakeholders attribute varied meanings to the event, ranging from the largely commercial to the personally significant, with a clear distinction evident between meanings framed around ‘celebration and spectacle’ and those centred on remembering the region’s cultural heritage.

Jelena Ðurkin, from the University of Rijeka, Croatia, and Nicholas Wise, from Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom, take us to Croatia for Chapter 13 in their chapter titled “Managing Community Stakeholders in Rural Areas” by assessing the organisation of local sports events in Gorski Kotar, Croatia. This chapter explores the complexity of organising small-scale sport events in rural areas by analysing important characteristics of rural areas and the overlapping of stakeholder categories. These findings are supported by empirical evidence from a case study and new insights on distrust and different desired social and economic outcomes of local organisers have come to light.

In the final contribution in Chapter 14, the editors return to reflect on the contributions contained in the volume and defending the cause for greater research of the kinds found here. They argue that there is still much work to do in deepening our understanding of the forces behind festivals and events.

We very much hope that you will enjoy reading this collection as much as we did working with the contributors. The chapters are thought provoking and tease out many of the themes which contribute to a critical understanding of festivals and events.

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A q-study of organisers’ perspectives on factors of festival success in Crete

Dimitrios P. Stergiou, Eirini Pehlivanidou and David Airey

Introduction

The Greek island of Crete has witnessed remarkable levels of tourism growth over the last 40 years. In 2015, more than 3.5 million tourists visited Crete, and the island had 167,540 hotel beds, the largest concentration of bed supply in the country (Hellenic Chamber of Hotels, 2016; SETE, 2015). Moreover, it has been estimated that tourism acts as the most important contributor to the added value of the products of Crete (40.34%) and that approximately 40% of the local population are involved in tourism activities, either directly or indirectly (Andriotis, 2008; Region of Crete, 2012). As a result, tourism is considered today to represent the largest economic activity of the island.

Crete provides tourists with a wide variety of activities, events and destinations to enjoy (Andriotis et al., 2007). An important point to address in this context is that residents of Crete take particular pride in their island and communities. Each community in Crete has its own history, customs and sense of pride. In many regional districts of Crete, therefore, one common occurrence is the regional festival with the island hosting over 60 regional events and festivals each year (Department of Festivals and Cultural Events, 2016). Festivals have been defined by Janiskee (1980: 97) as ‘formal periods or programs of pleasurable activities, entertainment, or events having a festive character and publicly celebrating some concept, happening or fact’. Festivals represent a cultural practice through which community values, ideologies and identity are celebrated (Getz, 2010). Accordingly, festivals play a significant role in the Cretan tourism product, bringing locals and visitors together to celebrate different occasions while at the same time encouraging preservation of the customs and traditions of the place (Region of Crete, 2016).

Even though statistics related to the economic contribution of festivals to the Cretan economy are not available, festival tourism is pronounced by local authorities as a strategy to assist in extending the destination’s life cycle (Greek National Tourism Organisation, 2003). If festivals are being used by tourism organisations such as regional tourism councils to attract tourists or visitors to a destination, then it is imperative that relevant research and evaluation is undertaken to provide appropriate information for festival management. However, despite a recent movement toward more formal organisation and planning of tourism, initiated mainly at the level of local authorities (Andriotis, 2003), to the best of the authors’ knowledge no research has been undertaken on the many festivals hosted in regional Cretan communities. As a result, there appears to be a lack of awareness of the information needs for festival management, not only in Crete but also across the Greek festival industry.

From a managerial perspective, festivals in Crete provide a wide range of entertainment and activities. Each festival possesses certain factors that make it a success, whether this is defined against economic, social, cultural or other objectives. From this, it follows logically that each festival may take different roads to success and each festival organiser may define success in a different way. However, regional festivals are often developed in a manner that may not meet with the success originally envisioned by organisers (Lade and Jackson, 2004). It is therefore necessary for festival organisers to have a clear understanding of why the events exist, what their goals are, and for whom they are being organised (Allen et al., 2011). These are concerns that every event organiser must plan and identify in order to maximise the potential benefits associated with the festival (Shone and Parry, 2013). In response to these issues, the purpose of this study is to use views of festival organisers to identify perceptions of key factors contributing to festival success in Crete. The nature of the study is exploratory and its methodological framework resides in the use of Q-methodology t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• 1 Introducing power, meaning and authenticity
• 2 A q-study of organisers’ perspectives on factors of festival success in Crete
• 3 “I don’t think they give a monkey’s about me”: exploring stakeholder power and community alienation at Glastonbury Festival
• 4 Event evolution and the planning process: the case of the Finnish housing fair
• 5 The sporting and heritage festival of Landsmót in Iceland: identity expressions and performances of nation, gender and rurality
• 6 Personal networks in festival, event and creative communities: perceptions, connections and collaborations
• 7 Innovation in rural festivals: are festival managers disempowered?
• 8 The effects of supply chain management (SCM) activities and their impact upon festival management and the customer experience
• 9 The importance of the stakeholder relationship for the success of an event: the case of Montreal
• 10 ‘Power wrestling’: the life and (untimely) death of the Real Food Festival
• 11 Religion and politics – event, authenticity and meaning: A dialogical approach
• 12 Commemoration, celebration, and commercialisation: akaroa’s French Festival
• 13 Managing community stakeholders in rural areas: assessing the organisation of local sports events in Gorski Kotar, Croatia
• 14 Concluding remarks on power authenticity and meaning
• Index